July 8, 2008

John Walters, chief of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, says that Mexico will win its drug war, especially now that the U.S. is pitching in $400 million this year. Not only will it win, but Mexico’s army and police will transform the drug cartels from “daytime wolves into cockroaches.”

In a follow-up press conference to the signing of the Merida Initiative drug control package, Walters warned the drug lords: “From now on, you need to understand that you have only two ways out: be captured and go to jail, or you will die in confrontations with government forces or at the hands of your rivals.”

The United States launched its drug war in 1972, when President Richard Nixon first declared the “war on drugs.” But after more than four decades and scores of billions of dollars, the U.S. government continues to lose the war.

As the New York Times noted in its July 2, 2008 editorial, “Not Winning War on Drugs,” Walters declared earlier this year that “courageous and effective” counternarcotics efforts in Colombia and Mexico “are disrupting the production and flow of cocaine.”

“This enthusiasm,” writes the NYT, “rests on a very selective reading of the data. Another look suggests that despite the billions of dollars the United States has spent battling the cartels, it has hardly made a dent in the cocaine trade.

A general rule of the drug business is that one of every ten shipments is lost to the drug control – which means that about $31 billion in illegal drugs likely entered the U.S. in 2007. These are the figures that DEA and ONDCP routinely fail to publish when they give their progress reports in the drug war.

A new World Health Organization study also disputes Walters’ repeated contention that the U.S. government is winning the drug war.

According to the new WHO survey of drug policy and drug use in 17 countries, “The U.S., which has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use.” The U.S., with the most punitive drug policy, has the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use.

In Mexico, the drug lords are contesting state power, not running for cover. The ones who look like cockroaches getting squished are the police who are being routinely rubbed out by the narcotraficantes.

Next time around, the U.S. Congress should refuse to approve the executive branch’s request for another $400 million to fight the drug war in Mexico. The main front in the campaign to address illegal drug flows is in the United States. The NYT is certainly right that it’s time to take a new approach: “Over all, drug abuse must be seen more as a public health concern and not primarily a law enforcement problem. Until demand is curbed at home, there is no chance of winning the war on drugs. “

Illegal drugs should certainly be treated primarily as a public health concern, addressed by education, treatment, and rehabilitation programs. At the same time, drug policy should move from drug prohibition to drug legalization and regularization. We learned that lesson once in the Prohibition Era.